Today is B’s birthday. Instead of it being a lovely family day with nice surprises for Daddy along the way, he sits in a coffee shop somewhere while I have just about managed to stop myself from crying because I was almost at the point of hyperventilating. Why? Because A wouldn’t eat her breakfast or her lunch or listen to a single word we said. Because frustration had reached a pinnacle and B and I bounced off each other making our anger and desperation worse. A is now fast asleep, down for a nap, while I sit in her room focusing my thoughts on this blog post. Today, this is what parenting looks like for me.

One of the questions I asked other parents in the blog series, In Conversation With, last year was what are your hopes and dreams for your children? It’s a question I have tried to answer myself over the years, but it’s a difficult one to truly articulate. Good job, success, happiness, happy relationship, respect, pride? As you probably know by now, Little Bean is growing rapidly and it turns out that she’s a she! We’re delighted to be having another girl, a little sister for A. Raising daughters in this century, however, has never been easy and it doesn’t look like it will get easier any time soon. In light of the new American Presidency, we have to question where has equality disappeared to? Why are women’s rights still not being recognised? In a world where such a man can be elected to one of the highest levels of esteem and power, how can we tell our children, our daughters, that by the time their future is here that they will be treated equally, respected and honoured?

A is almost three. Three years old and I can’t help but wonder, how often in that short space of time have I said, “It’ll be easier when…” As working parents, we go from house to car to work to car to house. Never ending regular routines and schedules that can’t be diverged from for fear of being late or losing control of the weekday madness and falling into a never ending trap of rushing, panicking and losing precious time. It’ll be easier when A can walk, when she can talk, when she can put her own coat on. It’ll always be easier when independence grows I thought. But it’s never truly easy and the endless rushing from day to day is simply hard. As a working parent, that hot cup of tea, those adult conversations and the quiet as I commute to the office is not a prize for working. It’s a reminder that I made it out the door with or without stress. But surely someday “It’ll be easier when…”

Frick, I’m tired! No Exhausted! This morning was one of those “Dear God, no, I can’t get out of bed” mornings. Now that A is two and a half, I don’t feel like I actually have the right to tell the world just how exhausted I am. Gone are the night feeds, the sleepless nights, the 4am wakings with a baby who is ready for the day. And it was repetitive as any parent knows. Its not just a week or a month. Oh no that broken, almost lack of sleep lasts a looooooooooonnnnngg time.